On Building Relationships with Clients

1. Always confirm an appointment the night before;
2. Always have more energy than your client;
3. Always leave your personal problems at home;
4. Unless you discuss a possible emergency with your client before the training session starts, never ever answer your phone mid session;
5. Ignore all distractions while training your client, including and especially your friends;

6. Stay away from complicated trainer jargon. Clients don't study it, clients don't understand it, it's not going to help them;
7. If your client is standing, you should never be sitting (Jon discusses this concept, called "Isopraxism" or "mirroring" in Ignite the Fire);
8. Occasionally people are late, so if your client is late once in a while acknowledge it, but forgive them, because eventually you're going to be late one day;
9. If you're relatively new to personal training, and working in the gym, keep your clients on the machines until you feel comfortable with instruction, afterwards you can take them out into an open area for more complex exercises, safety over fancy;
10. Be so verbally thorough and descriptive in explaining your exercises that even a blind person can grasp the concept of what you expect them to do;
11. Always log your clients workouts and keep all past workout logs;
12. Never make promises that you can't keep;
13. Remember when approaching somebody that you don't know to help them with their form, don't say "You're doing that wrong." Always start off with "Can I offer you some advice.";
14. Be willing to lend a helping hand to the gym, even if it's for free;
15. Make a plan for your client. Clients like to know that they're not just doing random workouts, and they're actually working toward a specific goal;
16. Presentation is everything, make sure your workout space is in order;
17. Make your clients journal their food;
18. Remember the Jillian Michaels routine does not work for many people, and not a lot of clients respond favorably to it. If that's not your style don't try to fake it;
19. When discussing goals for personal training clients, always use the word "we" (ex. we have to clean up our eating, we have to be more discipline);
20. Take time to tell your clients that you appreciate them;
21. Be always honest with your clients, if you noticed a change either good or bad, let them know;
22. Remember, they're clients not test dummies;
23. Never walk away from client (unless you got to fart);
24. Every client should feel that you're their top priority;
25. Never smoke out a new client when they're just starting, it's going to discourage them;
26. Whenever issuing criticism, always use the sandwich method, remember: compliment first, then criticism, then compliment;

On Business, Selling, and Marketing

27. Systemize everything, successful businesses run off of plans and programs, not chaos and aimlessness (check out Jon's desk for an example);
28. In the personal training industry, you only get paid when you train. So always save money to the side, because when you need a vacation you'll have money to live off of;
29. Take advantage of the tax benefits for self employed personal trainers, such as: purchasing equipment, exercise apparel and sneakers;
30. Don't push supplements onto your clients if you don't believe in them.
31. Never show desperation when selling personal training;
32. Speak slowly when going over contract terms with your client;
33. If you know that your gym has slightly underhanded ways of trying to sell personal training sessions, always let your client know exactly what to ask for and exactly what they're getting, because if they're unhappy with their contract, you're going to be the one stuck with an unhappy client;
34. Always assume the sale;
35. Box Gym Trainers: Get cool with the sale staff, front desk staff, and group fitness trainers they are going to be the ones that can feed you clients when you can't get them on your own;
36. Although I suggest that you give people your time, don't give all of your time away for free;
37. Rejection happens a lot in personal training. Don't let it get to you, and don't let it deter your from your next sale;
38. Learn to talk to anyone;
39. Be open to helping somebody with improper form, even if you don't think that they want to sign up for personal training. They may surprise you and sign up;
40. Never make a paying client wait because you're trying to close a sale on a possible new client;
41. Always ask for referrals;
42. Make yourself easy to find with social media and business cards (but keep your social media connection 100% professional)
43. Don't be afraid to give a free session to your clients once in a while;
44. Be opened to teaching some group exercise classes to get some notoriety in the gym;
45. Don't mix business with pleasure;
46. If you want to improve your ability to sell personal training, listen to Zig Ziglar's "5 Steps to successful selling"
47. Make friends with physical therapists, they have a lot of qualified leads for you coming off of their therapy;
48. Gym trainers, if you spend more time on the floor working yourself out than making money and getting personal training clients, you need to work on your priorities;
49. Build community among your clients, it may not be a bad idea in case you need to put two clients together and train two for one;
50. Hold fat loss contests;
51. Get a Google Voice Number, because especially if you work inside of a gym they tend to give your personal mobile number away, clients will call you at all hours of the night. So, if you have a Google Voice Number the calls can still go to your phone but you'll be able to screen when and where you want to get your client calls;
52. Let your clients in on your goals. They can benefit from seeing how you approach a challenge for yourself;
53. Learn to be organized, read The 7 habits of Highly effective people By Stephen Covey;
54. To excel in your craft don't just read books on training, read books on sales, business management and dealing with people (thePTDC has a list of the best books for personal trainers;
55. If you're selling a package to a client that you know you can't train, hand them off to another trainer, it'll come back to you;
56. Never book your sessions in so tightly that you have to rush clients in and out of session. You don't want to feel the way that you would feel if you were sitting in a doctor's office;
57. Never assume that based on the kind of jewelry that a client wears, or the kind of car that they drive that a person can or cannot afford personal training;
58. It's not the most glamorous, it's not the most lucrative, but starting in a big box gym may give you your best experiences, in terms of the business end, as well as the training end into your personal training career;
59. Learn how to leverage your time and make more money as a trainer;

Random Rules of the Job

60. Be a fitness professional because you love fitness, not because you think it's easy money;
61. You preach fitness, practice what you preach;
62. Clients have a skewed view about fitness, they think they need to be perfect 100% of the time, if you're the type of person that has a cheat meal every once so often, let your client know about it, let them know how you recover, how you get back on track, so that they can do the same thing and not feel discouraged when they slip up;

63. Never allow a client to disrespect you;
64. Do follow-up measurements to keep your clients informed and motivated;
65. Don't use your position to inappropriately touch, look at, or talk to a gym patron;
66. Don't punish poor eating habits with hard workouts, instead take the time to educate your client on how they can make better decisions;
67. You should make every effort possible to look the part of the personal trainer;
68. If you're going to be working out with your client, do it on your time not on their time;
69. Remember the beginning of your career is always going to be the hardest;
70. Have a niche to set yourself apart but be familiar with a broad span of training methods;
71. Encourage your clients' to get periodic blood work so they can check their risk for metabolic disease;
72. When in doubt the simpler exercise is usually your safer better option;
73. Keep your certifications current;
74. Never ever train a client without having them sign a waiver first;
75. Personal training insurance is too cheap to not have;
76. Take advice from other trainers;
77. Be a trainer, not a therapist;
78. If you're going to blatantly plagiarize another trainer's workout, at least give them the credit;

Day-to-Day

79. Always be on time;
80. Never show up to work hungover;
81. Spend at least as much time correcting nutritional habits as you do correct form;
82. Be positive;
83. Try to educate yourself continually;
84. Stay within the scope of your knowledge;
85. Take fitness beyond the gym, into 5K's, mud runs; and sports outings;
86. No trainer is too good to clean up weights to make sure the gym is clean on their down time;
87. Personality matters, always let your personality shine through in your training;
88. A genuine compliment goes a very long way;
89. Your fitness director's job is harder than it looks, cut them some slack if they're a little bit crabby;
90. Always ask your clients for feedback;
91. Be available early in the morning;
92. Learn to do mitt work and box;
93. Do your best to cater your training environment to your clients' likes;
94. Have an alternate plan in case somebody's using a machine that you planned on using;
95. Remember, encouragement and enthusiasm are as important as instruction;
96. Always make sure to schedule in time for your own personal workout;
97. Always take time to help trainers that have less experience than you.